


Regina Remembers

by lzclotho



Series: SQ tumblr one-shots [24]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Dark!Emma, Gen, Grief, Loss, Post-Season 4, bringing back the Savior, missing Emma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-20
Updated: 2015-06-20
Packaged: 2018-04-05 07:28:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4171170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lzclotho/pseuds/lzclotho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>pre-SQ and Dark!Emma fic idea prompted by the tumblr post quoted in my notes below. Warning, some passing 0Q and some past C$ hinted at.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Regina Remembers

**Author's Note:**

> halerazer:  
> She’s been on my mind the last few days and I looked at the calendar this morning only to realize it’s her birthday. I shouldn’t care, but I do. She kickstarted my heart the day we met and I haven’t been able to stop it. 3 years of this absolute torture and I can’t stop… Wtf is wrong with me?

It had been months since Emma took hold of the Dark One dagger and saved Regina from its malevolent influence. It had been weeks since Emma disappeared and the dagger clattered to the street bearing the letters EMMA SWAN. 

Over the early ensuing days, Regina tried everything she could think of, and even a few things others could imagine, to call the Dark One. But Emma never reappeared.

Robin pulled Regina away from the site, begging her to stop crying and screaming; they’d figure something out. He fell to the wayside in Regina’s quest to bring back Henry’s other mother when Zelena went into labor. More pressing concerns, he’d said. Hook, too, gave up, too easily lost without his Emma-compass. First came drink, then women.

Nothing was more pressing to Regina than getting Emma Swan back. Over the days to follow, Henry – their son – looked at her with quiet pain each time he came to the study doorway. He lingered, watching her searching her mother’s books, and loaners from Rumple and the Blue Fairy. He said he was sorry he had broken the pen. 

Regina rested her forehead against his sadly, in solidarity.  _Shhh._  She brushed away his tears. There was no rewriting this story anyway. She kissed his head, promised that everything would be all right, and went back to searching the books. For a time, she kept the dagger in her bedside table. Then, once she caught Robin trying to steal it, she locked it away in her vault.

Snow came over; they talked about town business. Snow was running things again. Little Neal grew into a toddler, and Regina became something of an aunt to him, advising Snow from her memories with Henry, chasing him across the lawn to and from the apple tree.

As the summer days wore on she often rested her hand on the trunk with its cut limb, feeling loss without a name.

Autumn arrived and Henry returned to school. She joined the PTA and helped him study. She was marking something on the calendar, a meeting, when her fingers rested on October 22.  _There was something…_

_Emma_. 

Regina’s knees buckled and she clung to the wall for support. The next day would be Emma’s birthday. Five years since the Savior crossed the town line and turned everything upside down. 

No, Regina acknowledged. Emma hadn’t turned anything upside down. She hadn’t messed something up. Emma Swan had worked to  _make everything right._  

Slowly, Regina picked herself up off the floor. 

She looked at the calendar, circled October 23, and went back to her books with a determined smile. 

For her birthday, she would give Emma Swan a happy ending.

And this time, it wouldn’t be through a curse.

It would be a blessing.

###


End file.
